“Which will upset all the upperclassmen!” another couldn’t help but jump in. “Because we all know youlivefor those chairs.”
“We also want to steal some chairs from inside the buildings,” the first kid added. “Enough that classes get canceled, because it’s like, where will we sit?”
Tag and I swayed together for a second when he rose to his full height. I was trying really hard not to think about his hands on my thighs, so I didn’t realize I had grabbed two tufts of his thick hair and was holding on for dear life.
“Lily, you’re squeezing my skull,” he whispered.
“Shit, sorry,” I whispered back, but after letting go, it only got worse. I crossed my ankles for better support while Tag’s hands moved farther up my thighs, and his lips pressed against the inside of my knee as if to anchor himself.
A lightning bolt crackled through my body before it settled into an electric hum, a longing ache. “Okay,” I breathed. “Just a little closer…” I swallowed hard, my pulse pounding. “Just a little closer and I’ll be able to reach the top.”
“We’ll be in their crosshairs,” Tag warned, mouth moving on my skin. A few more steps forward and we would be in plain sight. Alex had turned off his flashlight, but someone else’s glowed so they weren’t in total darkness.
A distraction, I thought.We need a diversion within a diversion.
Tag shuddered as I clung closer to him to pull my phonefrom my pocket. Thankfully, I’d turned my brightness level down ahead of time.We are right behind the HG, I texted Alex.Can you somehow turn their heads?
My heart thudded three times before a deep-voiced boy asked Alex who’d texted him. He definitely thought something was amiss. “My dearest friend,” Alex lied smoothly. “Instead of keeping a dream journal, Taggart likes to text me his.”
Tag snorted. “Try the other way around.”
“Oh…” all the guys said, and that was when I knew for sure they were freshmen. Freshmen idolized Tag because he was so nice to them. Even watching from afar, I knew he always had a fist bump ready and knew almost everyone’s name.
He would’ve made a damn good prefect.
A sudden beeping noise snapped me back to the sculpture situation. “Fuck,” Tag was mumbling. “Fuck me.” He let go of my left leg to dig something out of his pocket. Not his phone but his insulin pump. Did he have a notification?
I squeezed my eyes shut.Don’t hear us, I prayed as he silenced it.Please don’t hear us—
Alex immediately did, attuned to the sound, but swooped in to save us. He sprung up from his bench, sneakers slamming against the deck’s wooden planks. “So you want to move all the chairs…” I could tell from his tone that he was pacing. “That’s a pretty big job, guys. Especially at this time of night.” He let out a low whistle.
A signal.
Tag’s hand went to my leg again to regain our balance,and he edged us around theHour Glass.Slow and steady, I told myself, even though I wanted to go fast and furious.
“The buildings are all locked,” Alex reminded the boys. “How do you plan on getting inside to take those chairs?”
No one offered up an answer except the trusting tinny-voiced kid. If I were to suddenly go toppling over, I would land on him. “Brendan stole our prefect’s ID,” he said. “He snuck into his room while he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. He stays up late, so that’s why we got out here so late.”
Oh, how marvelous, I internally groaned. Something told me it wasn’t Manik they’d robbed.
“You good, Lily?” Tag asked, and I stilled my shaking fingers long enough to secure the Ziploc bag on top of the sculpture. Alex continued to pace and ask questions, so his audience didn’t hear me ripping strips of duct tape. He somehow managed to sound interested instead of interrogative.
“How about the plan of attack?” Alex asked. “Dividing and conquering won’t work, because you only have one key.”
I shifted on Tag’s shoulders. “Done,” I said, and he moved so abruptly that I went swinging, and when he tried to stop me from tumbling to the ground entirely, he stumbled over a stray branch.
With Alex still in the sanctuary, Tag and I could forgo our army crawling and just make a quick and quiet run back to the main trail. I was afraid to check the time once we finally made it back to the tree where we’d stowed his and Alex’s backpacks. The gnawing in my gut told me it was after 2:00 a.m.
We both sighed in relief. “Well, that was fun,” I joked weakly.
“I’m going to update Alex,” Tag said, unlocking his phone. “Since I’m apparently sending him my dreams…”
His text appeared in our group chat several seconds later:Mission accomplished.
Alex quickly responded:You guys should go ahead without me.
My heart rate skyrocketed.NO!I wrote before Tag could.
